The invention relates to a method for handling loads in a warehouse for containers, particularly standard containers.
European patent application EP 1 490 286 B1 discloses a method for handling loads of standard containers in a warehouse. The warehouse is a part of a port cargo handling installation which includes a water-side handling area, the warehouse and a land-side handling area. The water-side handling area has handling devices in the form of handling bridges with which ships lying alongside a quay are loaded and/or unloaded. Between the handling devices and an area of the warehouse where containers are placed into and removed from storage, the containers are transported by floor-borne vehicles, in particular driverless transport vehicles. At the end opposite the area where containers are placed into and removed from storage, the warehouse is allocated a loading and unloading area for transport vehicles such as trucks or lorries, to which the transport vehicles travel via an entry and exit area of the handling installation with an identification area.
The warehouse is an automated warehouse with a corresponding automated area specially secured against unauthorised access by a boundary such as, for example, a wall or fence. The automated area of the warehouse terminates in each case at the adjacent land-side loading and unloading area for the lorries and at the adjacent water-side area where containers are placed into and removed from storage. In both these areas manual operation or semi-automatic operation takes place for safety reasons. The automated warehouse includes a rectangular, longitudinally extending warehouse area in which the containers are stored in columns and rows and stacked up to 5 containers one on top of another on the ground.
The warehouse area is located below an automatic stacking crane which can travel on rails. The automatic stacking crane includes a crane bridge, the ends of which run on elevated rails via running gears. The crane bridge is therefore able to travel in the longitudinal direction of the warehouse area. A trolley which can travel transverse to the warehouse area is disposed on the crane bridge. A vertically moveable mast is mounted on the trolley, the lower end of which mast is adjoined by a load-receiving means in the form of a spreader for containers. Gantry cranes or semi-gantry cranes can also be used instead of a stacking crane.
A handling process in this handling installation takes place as follows. A lorry to be loaded and/or unloaded travels into the handling installation via an entry and exit area and thus arrives in an identification area in which the lorry and possibly its transported containers are identified and measured. Access authorisation is then issued to the driver in the form of a magnetic card or chip card which contains all relevant data relating to the handling task. These data are also transmitted to a superordinate data processing system of a logistics administration facility. The driver then drives his lorry to an area of the loading and unloading area which he has been allocated and reverses his lorry into a parking position in the loading and unloading area. The lorry is recognised and identified during the parking procedure by a camera disposed in the loading and unloading area. The camera also makes it possible to deliver information relating to the position of the lorry, such as its distance from a demarcation within the loading and unloading area and its angle of rotation with respect to the ground, to the data processing system of the logistics administration facility. When the parking procedure is completed the exact position of the lorry is then known to the data processing system of the logistics administration facility. These data then serve as a target position for the stacking crane for setting down or picking up a container onto or from the lorry. In the usual manner an operator monitors and controls the loading process on a central monitor via cameras disposed on the load-receiving means. Before the loading and/or unloading process takes place, the driver of the lorry goes to a registration office in order to use the magnetic or chip card to indicate that the lorry is ready to be loaded and unloaded. If the operator of the stacking crane should determine via the cameras that twist locks are incorrectly positioned, he can use an intercom to ask the driver to rectify the incorrect positioning.